Status Report, 29 Oct 2023

Big Picture: Where are we?
When one door closes, another one opens. The concrete is still stalled… BUT big news on the doors!

it’s been about 6 weeks since I wrote a status report. It isn’t for lack of activity- just not what I’d define as progress. I’ll dive into it below.

Corp Update

We finally received approved permits for construction of the hardscape work (retaining walls, sidewalk, and driveway). As I mentioned on Sept 18th, we seem to have been ghosted by our concrete crew. I made the decision to start interviewing new crews. I brought in a total of 7 new subcontractors to look at the job. Two were what I’d call “white glove” companies that specialize in turn-key landscaping projects. While I’m not looking for someone to do all of the design work again, I thought it was worth including them. The remaining 5 companies are classic concrete/ block companies.

The bids overall came in *really high*- quite a bit more than expected. I received 5 bids, so it wasn’t just a single outlier. This caused us to rethink the design. One of the companies in particular was very helpful in suggesting alternatives that would be less expensive. Unfortunately, those involve different construction techniques, so we had to go back to the engineers and get new engineering drawings with the new technique. Those drawings came through on Friday, so I’ll submit those back to the City for review and approval. We will also have a couple of the bidders out to look at update their estimates.

The original plan was to dig a footer 3′ below the surface, pour a 48″ wide x 12″ thick footer with rebar, then stack concrete blocks to build the wall. The rebar from the footer would need to extend all the way up through the top of the wall, as well as having horizontal ties. Then, once it’s all stacked, we go back and pump more concrete to fill in the hollow parts of the CMU’s (concrete masonry units, aka cinder blocks). It’s a LOT of work and a WHOLE lot of concrete.

There are a lot of things that make this expensive. Part is the materials cost- concrete is $250/ cu yd in Pittsburgh right now. The original design was ~55-60 yds, incl. pouring the patio and the footers. The new design is a drystack method that requires a fraction of the concrete. We’ll use Keystone blocks (similar to VersaLock) that interlock with one another. Those blocks can be set on a compacted gravel footing that is only about 12″ below the surface. That means less excavation, and WAY less concrete, which all saves a ton of money. It also means that we can do at least some of the work regardless of the weather. We can’t pour concrete if it’s below freezing, but if we can excavate the footer, we can put in the gravel, compact it, and lay the drylock blocks. Then we’ll pour concrete as soon as we get some warm weather.

So, next steps are to submit the plans to the city and get some revised bids! As I said, it’s not where we hoped to be, but the original pricetags were just untennable, so this will produce a better result.
In other big news, WE HAVE A FRONT DOOR!!!! We found a stone mason a while back, and we were trying to coordinate him with the other work, but decided to just push forward. This week we removed the old front step (top step only), installed a new top step, and finally fitted the beautiful double front doors from Allegheny Millworks. It’s quite a trick- the stop weighs about 700 lbs, and the doors are a beast to wrangle in and out, but we finally got them installed. Next up on this project is to do all the small trim work that completes the project- trim around the outside of the door, a granite slab under the threshold, and then redoing the plaster and baseboards in the vestibule. It’ll definitely keep me busy for a while, but it’s totally exciting to have it done. The light coming into the hallway is just amazing. Yeah!!!

Fun side note: I learned to use some tools in the metal shop at Hack to mill up a new door latch for the entryway. The cutout was a good bit larger than expected, and ti was easier to mill a new strike plate instead of filling in the wood. New skills!!
At hack, I have finished all 4 sections of the platform. There’s one more unit to build, which extends into the metal shop, and I’m hoping to do that some time this week. Then we can finally have a weekend to rearrange the shop. However, now that I have an exciting project to finish at home, it’s a bit of a challenge to get it all done.
Taxes were filed and complete. Yeah!!!

Goals for November